CHAPTER

36

A CROWD HAD gathered around the final table when Jamie returned.

“Where is she?” Loyal asked.

Jamie sat down. “Dunno. It looks like she left.”

“What the fuck?” There was a moment of chaos as his chair thumped backward and he went down the hall to the restroom to see for himself, as though Phoebe might have left a trail. By the time he came back he was angry and grumbling about a new plan. Lena Bangor would deal the final match.

The girl refused to get up from her chair. “No, I don’t know how.”

“Don’t worry.” Loyal pulled her to her feet. “I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”

“But I’ve never even played.” She flicked her eyes at Jamie, who dropped her gaze and pretended to count her chips. Instead, she was quietly speculating about allowing herself to lose, how much it would piss off Loyal if she didn’t take the beating, and how the cards might fall without her mother’s interference. Fades and bluffs. Regardless of the cards, she had to play to the man’s weakness, his ego.

“It’s easy.” Loyal led Lena to Phoebe’s empty chair. He pulled his own chair up behind her and said, “In fact, it’s even better this way.”

Keating said, “Your dad would be proud,” and the girl picked up the deck.

The crowd pushed in closer. There was no pretense here. No one expected Jamie, the strange-looking girl, the contender with the weirdly dramatic eyes, to bring much game. Jack leaned against a wall across the room and stared at Jamie. He pointed at his eyes with a perplexed expression but Jamie didn’t care. Fuck you all resumed in her head, drowning out everything else.

“Shuffle up and deal,” Loyal said, but Lena spilled the cards on the table.

It was better than a shuffle. Even if her uncle had stacked the cards while she was in the bathroom, Jamie knew he couldn’t plant a card in this situation if his life depended on it.

She folded the first hand and Keating folded the second, trading chips and staying even. On the third hand, Keating made a big bet and Jamie raised it by three. She propped her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on her fists. He tapped the shirt pocket holding his cigarettes, his eyes darting sideways and then back to center, and called her bet. Two jacks came on the flop. She bet again, hoping he’d fold. She guessed he had face cards, maybe a king and a queen. He hesitated, then called her bet. She pushed all in when a nine came on the turn.

Loyal sat with his arm stretched possessively across the back of Lena’s chair, cleared his throat, and glared straight-faced at Jamie. He’d be pissed if she made Keating look foolish, but if the crowd of men betting against her wanted a show, she’d give it to them.

Keating folded. “I’ll give you this one, little lady.” He turned over an ace and threw his other card into the muck.

Jamie slid her cards facedown across the table and said nothing.

Keating smiled his campaign smile. “Be a sport and show one.”

“No, sir. I never show my cards,” Jamie said.

“Oh, come on. This is a friendly game.” He reached for her cards and flipped the first one he touched, the ten. She gestured whatever, hoping he’d flip the other card, too. He did.

When he saw the deuce he glanced hotly at Loyal.

Jamie stacked her chips and willed a straight face. She’d pulled off a classic bluff with a ten/two and someone in the back of the crowd laughed. Keating couldn’t have expected a move like that in a game that was supposed to have been rigged in his favor. His face reddened, but the embarrassment was his own fault. He shouldn’t have turned her cards over when she’d said no. He drummed his fingers on the table, tapped his shirt pocket again.

Loyal shuffled the deck and handed the cards to Lena, who dealt the next hand.

Their stacks were even now and any hand could end the game. Keating leaned back and stretched his arms over his head, smiled at Lena. It was pathetic. The old guy sucking up to a grief-stricken girl. He might appear to be consoling and fatherly, but Jamie saw how his eyes lingered over the girl’s breasts.

“The action’s on the judge,” Loyal said.

Keating peeked at his hole cards and tossed a few chips in the pot.

Jamie checked.

Lena turned over the first three community cards, two tens and a king.

Keating fired a huge bet and Jamie folded her lousy pocket threes.

On the next hand, Jamie turned the corners up on her cards and saw a good hand, the ten of diamonds and nine of spades. Her vision narrowed but her mind expanded with an odd but familiar awareness. This was the hand it would all come down to.

Lena spread the community cards, the king of hearts, the ten and three of spades. A pair of tens was good in a heads-up match, but Keating was too calm.

A murmur went through the crowd. Someone whistled, someone said, “We might get some fireworks now.”

Keating bet half his stack and the crowd hushed. He might have big cards, but she was still in it with her pair of tens and the spades. She could hit a legitimate spade flush, but right now he was beating her and he knew it. She made her hands tremble slightly.

Toby never folded spades. He’d always bet them, always believed they’d come through. This one’s for you, brother. She made her hands tremble a little more, fumbled the chips as she counted them out. Keating watched her closely, tried not to smile at what he would have to presume were nerves.

Her mind was quiet except for the ticking of her heart. It had been so cold that day at the jail, Toby’s fingers nearly blue. She imagined his hands, cold and numb while he tied the hangman’s knot. He was so damn good at knots. She wondered how many times he’d changed his mind, tied it and untied it, before deciding to go through with it. How long had he spent trying to get the rope the right length?

The turn was the ace of diamonds. Loyal tapped a knuckle on the table. “Earth to Jamie.”

Keating fired a big bet.

It would take half her stack to make the call. Keating looked smug. She guessed at what he might be holding, maybe ace/queen. In that case, his aces would beat her tens, and if the last card was a jack, he’d have a straight. He leaned back in his chair, linked his fingers over his belly, breathed deeply as though he was struggling not to smile. He didn’t, she noticed, look her in the eye or pat the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. She felt sure he had the aces and a straight draw.

Had there been a pipe overhead or a high, barred window? Toby’s last lonely wish must have vanished as the chair went out from under his feet and his neck snapped in the noose. Had he hoped that someone—his mother, uncle, or sister, someone, anyone—would step in and pull him back from the edge? Had he changed his mind in that last second? How long had he suffered before the guard came back on his round? Thank God they’d found him in time.

Loyal rapped impatiently on the table.

She bent up the corners of her hole cards again. She was supposed to fold here, let Keating take half her stack and move him one step closer to the win. Chances were his aces would hold up and then this whole stupid charade would be over. But no one could blame her for staying in it with a pair of tens. They would say it was a good call. But if she won—then everyone would come unglued.

The crowd moved in tighter to watch the last hand. Garcia pushed through to stand behind Loyal. When he put his hands into his pockets, Jamie saw the flash of metal cuffs hooked to his belt. She decided to go for it. When she made the call, the top of her head turned cold.

Loyal hunkered over the table and flicked a warning at her with his eyes. She ignored him. What could he do in front of all these people?

Lena held the deck with both hands. Loyal said, “Burn one.” She placed the next card facedown in the muck and then turned over the fifth card.

A blur passed in front of Jamie’s eyes. The jack of spades. If she’d read him right, Keating had made his straight. There were only three spades on the board. That queen was in her cuff, but her pulse was beating wildly and her hands jittered like moths in a streetlight.

It was Keating’s move. His eyes were dead still on her, practically gloating. Her water bottle sat on the floor beside her chair. As she reached for it, she moved the queen to her palm.

Keating said, “All in.”

Her heart banged in her throat. She picked up her hole cards again, switched the ten for the queen, coughed and moved the ten to her jacket pocket. She straightened and counted to three. Anyone who’d seen what she’d done would speak up immediately. But no one did.

“I call,” she said.

He turned over the queen of diamonds and the ace of hearts. Just as she thought, he’d made an ace-high straight. The crowd buzzed and whooped. Keating punched the air with his fist and high-fived Eddie. Loyal’s shoulders gave a little and the tension in his jaw relaxed. He pushed Keating’s cards forward to show the straight and let it sit there.

Jamie turned over her queen/nine and waited.

Keating read the board.

A hum rustled through the crowd. “Goddamn,” Eddie said. “She’s got spades.”